RIM National Meeting - II

Participants: Sanat Mohanty (RIM-USA), Abhijit Sarkar (RIM-USA), Sangeetha (EXNORA), Neelima Khetan (Seva Mandir-Rajasthan), Ajay Mehta (AVARD- Delhi), Dr. Parameswar Rao (BCT-Andhra Pradesh), Dr. Sudarshan (VGKK- Karnataka), Viren Joshi (Safai Vidyalaya- Gujarat), Vimala Ramakrishnan (JMC- Delhi), R. Sastry (ASTRA- Karnataka), Sindhu Naik (ILP-Karnataka), Ravi M. (GPC- Karnataka), Biplab Halim (IMSE- West Bengal), T.K. Ramkumar (EXNORA-Chennai & Coimbatore), Sreenivas (EXNORA- Chennai), Dr. Chopra (PSi-Dehradoon), Prof Karunakaran (Chitrakoot University, Madhya Pradesh), Dr. Satyamurthy (BCT- Andhra Pradesh), Mr. Manohar Golpalwar (IIYW, Maharashtra), Jagdish Damania (ILP Bangalore), Girdharan S.(IISc).

Invitees who could not attend due to last minute emergencies: Dr. Udaymurthy (Makkal Shakti- Tamil Nadu), Sri Jagadannada (CYSD-Orissa), Sri Ishwarbhai Patel (Safai Vidyalaya- Gujarat, sent Viren Joshi in his place), Chandi Prasad Bhat (Dasholi Gram Swaraj- Uttar Pradesh).

Key points discussed in the meeting:

• Background of RIM: Dr. Rao gave the group a brief on the genesis of RIM through his initial visit to the US, meetings with various city groups which culminated in the national meet at Ganges, MI, USA. Eversince, members of RIM have been getting individuals and organisations in India and the US together. He explained how RIM was a unique effort. He distributed three papers authored by him, to all participants: India of My Dreams, Only a Genius Can Make India Poor, RIM Operations, as it is emerging.

• Vision and Mission of RIM: The participants deliberated on issues facing India today and agreed upon a vision and mission statement for RIM.

• Organisation Structure: The participants discussed and arrived at the organization structure for RIM. RIM will be registered in the US, and not registered in India. In India, it will remain a federation of organisations. The NGOs in different states can directly acquire funds from RIM-USA.

• RIM expectations from RIM-USA: RIM in India will look for sources other than RIM-USA for funding. RIM-USA will play a different / more active role in RIM, than merely fund-raising.

• Civic Cooperation (CC): Mr. T.K. Ramkumar introduced the concept of Exnora and explained how communities came together to tackle local issues. "The entry point to getting a community together is usually solid waste. Civic Exnoras (community based organisations / CBOs) have been initiated by Exnora all over South India. There is a need to scale this up to a national level." Mr. Viren Joshi explained the Sanitation project of Safai Vidyalaya in Gujarat. It was decided that Exnora would spearhead the CC program for RIM, and would train the RIM core team members on implementing CC in the next workshop.

• Stimulated Volunteerism (SV): Participants explained different processes of operation (selection, identification, training, monitoring and evaluation), based on their experiences with similar programs in the past. It was decided to place 70 volunteers in villages in the first year. They discussed training components for SVs. A broad common outline for training of SVs should be brought out by the group, to help NGOs to carry out the training.

• RIM will start with SV and CC, but may take up more programs in the future.

• Coming together of major NGOs from different parts of the country is a great start for the movement.

• Entry points for organising different communities may be different, according to their felt needs.

• The idea of RIM is wonderful. The scale of expectation should be humble. The beginnings should be modest, and we should not simplify the leap that we are looking for.